Many articles about diabetes appear daily, many of them very interesting. The intent here is to make some of these available for others who may not see them or have bypassed them. I will try to comment briefly on those I have grouped or on an individual article. This is not guaranteed to be a daily post, but I hope that this will give you ideas for your own research or blog posts. Please talk to your doctor about medical problems.

23 November 2010

The Future of Health Care Reform

When I wrote this on October 16, 2010, I wasn't sure of what was coming next. I thought I knew, but not this. This insertion in the New England Journal of Medicine has no place being given space. This author cries fowl because the GOP now can block, de-fund, and generally make the ACA (Affordable Care Act) generally ineffective.

Congress cannot presently repeal the ACA, but it can now pick and chose the parts that may get support. While I don't like many parts of the ACA, I can support other parts. I do not like that our medical insurance industry is being so greedy and determined to reap their profits before they are regulated and this needs to stop. The other problems are that many of the insurance companies will be slowly forced out of business so that people will demand universal care insurance from the government. There is no balance in what is happening.

There are issues in all this, but a respected medical journal is not the place for politics. This is more appropriate for blogs and other places. That the NEJM chooses to air the political furor of its members degrades it's place in medical journals and should be on the boycott list by the medical community and research community. Will this happen?
I doubt it, but there are other medical journals that have recently gained traction and this position may lose this journal some respect.

While the author tries to present his arguments fairly, it is easy for me to see where this is heading and this is the reason I am so against this in a medical journal.

About Me

I am enjoying life, despite diabetes type 2. I am retired and enjoying the time I have for writing and photography. I was diagnosed with type 2 on Oct 2003, on oral meds for 4 months and they were doing nothing to really improve my daily readings. By cutting my carbohydrates I received the most improvement, but still not enough. Then I requested insulin, even though I did not like the thought of needles. That brought about the biggest change and A1c's in the lower 6's and upper 5's. Now I am working at maintaining them under 6.0 and hopefully nearer 5.5.